Welcome to Derry’s Shocking Shining Crossover Was Already Explained by Stephen King
The Stephen King multiverse just got darker: HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry is crossing over with The Shining, merging two nightmares into one chilling event.
HBO has a new It prequel on the way, and yes, Bill Skarsgard is back as everyone’s favorite nightmare clown. But the bigger surprise? The show is pulling in a major character from The Shining. That’s right — Dick Hallorann is headed to Derry.
Wait… that Hallorann?
In the latest trailer for It: Welcome to Derry, we get a good look at Richard 'Dick' Hallorann, played here by Chris Chalk. If the name rings a bell, it should: in Stephen King’s The Shining, Hallorann is the Overlook Hotel’s head chef with the same telepathic ability as young Danny. He’s the one who senses the hotel has its hooks in Jack Torrance. So yes, we’re squarely in King crossover territory.
How he fits into Derry
The series is set more than a decade before The Shining, which is why Hallorann’s a younger man here. In the footage, he befriends a young family that just moved to Derry, Maine — and then immediately starts ringing alarm bells. He points out that people have gone missing in the town before, and with what sure looks like early-stage psychic sensitivity, he warns that 'something is coming.' Subtle, it is not.
The inside-baseball connection King fans already knew
Hallorann showing up isn’t random. He actually appears in King’s 1986 novel It. There, he’s an Army cook stationed at The Black Spot, a Black nightclub in Derry that’s going to be a key location in the show. That club is later burned down by white supremacists — a flashpoint the series is tackling head-on.
'It’s a big paroxysm of violence' that reflects 'the darkness of the story' and 'the violence that happened in America,' director Andy Muschietti told TVInsider about the Black Spot sequence.
Who’s played Hallorann before
- Scatman Crothers in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining
- Carl Lumbly in 2019’s Doctor Sleep
- Chris Chalk in It: Welcome to Derry (set over 10 years before The Shining)
So what’s the big picture?
It: Welcome to Derry isn’t just bringing back Pennywise; it’s stitching together King’s shared world in a way the movies only hinted at. Hallorann’s 'shine' is part of the fabric here, not just a Shining one-off, and The Black Spot looks like a centerpiece that ties Derry’s supernatural horror to very real, very human violence. Grim, but fitting for this town.
When and where to watch
It: Welcome to Derry premieres October 26 on HBO and HBO Max in the US, and October 27 on Sky and Now in the UK.